


Skin Deep

by aretia



Series: Pulchritudinous [3]
Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Deception, Emotional Manipulation, Established Relationship, Fade to Black, Implied Sexual Content, Ineffable Bureaucracy (Good Omens), Makeup, Makeup artist Beelzebub, Nonbinary Beelzebub (Good Omens), Other, Post-Almost Apocalypse (Good Omens), Pre-Fall (Good Omens), Unhealthy Relationships, Ze/Zir Pronouns for Beelzebub (Good Omens)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-15
Updated: 2020-04-15
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:08:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,066
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23672839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aretia/pseuds/aretia
Summary: After Beelzebub and Gabriel get back together, Beelzebub wonders if Gabriel really sees zir as the demon ze is now, or as the angel he remembers. Beelzebub gets an answer when Gabriel makes a surprise visit to Hell, and sees Beelzebub without zir makeup for the first time.
Relationships: Beelzebub/Gabriel (Good Omens)
Series: Pulchritudinous [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1683535
Comments: 13
Kudos: 30





	Skin Deep

Some angels, when they fell, lost all their memories of who they had been before. They forgot their names, their personalities, their connections to angels who were left on the other side of the divide. Beelzebub thought that they were the lucky ones. They were the ones who had been important enough to have something to forget. When Beelzebub had been an angel, ze didn’t even have a name.

Ze remembered standing on a cloud, looking out at the newly created universe, when ze sensed the presence of a powerful angel approaching. “Archangel Gabriel!” ze said in surprise as ze whirled around. Ze almost lost zir balance and fell off the edge of the cloud, beating zir wings to regain an upright position. The angels had all been assigned semi-physical forms to contain their ethereal energy, and ze was still getting used to it. 

“Hello there,” the Archangel Gabriel greeted zir. “What are you doing out here…?” He puffed out his cheeks and slowly blew air out of his mouth, clearly wracking his mind to recall zir name. As an executive of Heaven, he prided himself on remembering the names of everyone he managed, and he appeared unnerved when faced with an angel he didn’t recognize. Then, his expression changed to a sheepish grin, and he rubbed the back of his head in embarrassment. “I’m really sorry. I forgot your name.”

“That’s okay,” ze said with a fleeting smile. “I don’t have one.”

“You don’t have a name?” Gabriel asked incredulously. He stepped closer, immersing zir in the intoxicating waves of his divine energy, calling to a desire deep inside zir that made zir want to drown in it. “What do angels call you, then?”

“They don’t call me anything,” ze said. “Usually it’s just, ‘Hey, you, get that star out of the pressure cooker before it explodes.’”

“We’re going to need to think of something to call you, in that case,” Gabriel said, his face breaking out into a grin that no star could match in radiance. He stood by zir side now, stretching his enormous wings, and he brought one of them down to drape around zir shoulders. The gesture was unexpected, and it made some new and hopeful longing unfold in zir chest. Another smile tugged at the corners of zir lips, and this time, it lingered.

Gabriel thought of many names to call zir during the indefinite period before time was invented. He called zir “beautiful,” when he held zir face in his hands under a painted galaxy, and looked only at zir instead of the stars. He called zir “soulmate,” when he cradled zir in his wings and told zir that the connection they shared was the truest form of divine devotion. Of all the names he came up with, zir favorite was “love.” He took the most important thing in Heaven, the very essence that imbued their celestial beings with life, and breathed it into a name, one that ze cherished with all zir might. But there were other names, too, and zir least favorite names were the ones that he called zir when he thought ze wasn’t around. 

Ze was walking down the hallway to the secret meeting place ze had arranged with Gabriel when ze stopped and took refuge behind a column. Gabriel was there in the courtyard, but so was the Archangel Michael. 

“Your productivity has been slowing down lately, Gabriel,” Michael said, holding a scroll in her hands. “As archangels, it is our job to hold each other accountable. Care to explain?”

“I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Gabriel said, with a nervous tightness in his voice. “I promise it will be back to normal as soon as possible.” 

“Could it have something to do with that small, dark-haired angel you’ve been seen with, perhaps?” Michael asked, her tone dripping with accusation. “Who is that?”

“Just some nameless commoner angel,” Gabriel said with a dismissive shrug. Ze overheard him from where ze eavesdropped in the corridor, and clasped zir hands over zir mouth to stifle a wounded gasp. Both of the archangels turned towards zir hiding place, and ze realized that ze had been caught.

“Gabriel?” ze called, stepping out from behind the column. Gabriel’s expression when he laid eyes on zir was one of fear, devoid of the fondness with which he usually looked at zir. Michael’s was one of surprise, her eyebrow raised sharply as she glanced between zir and Gabriel. Tears streamed down zir face as ze fled the courtyard, running as far as ze could until ze collapsed in a fit of sobs.

Ze didn’t expect Gabriel to come for zir. The sudden rush of energy filling the air alerted zir to his presence. “There you are,” he said, sounding relieved, but a little bit exasperated. He kneeled down beside zir and placed a hand on zir shoulder. “Love, I told you, you can’t interrupt me when I’m talking to the other archangels. It’s not appropriate.”

“Why did you deny our relationship like that?” ze cried. 

“Because,” Gabriel said, and then rolled his lip into his mouth like he was scouring his mind for an excuse, as if ‘because’ had been enough of an explanation to him. “You and I are of different ranks, and they aren’t meant to mix. I narrowly talked my way out of that one with Michael, but if she or anyone else found out, it could be disastrous for us both.”

“But I thought you said our love was holy,” ze said. 

“It is,” Gabriel said, looking startled to have his own words thrown back at him. “It is, but it’s only for us. The others wouldn’t understand. That’s why you need to respect the hierarchy. It’s all part of the Great Plan.”

“How do you know?” ze demanded. “Why would the Great Plan oppose true love?”

Gabriel’s expression darkened, a storm gathering behind his violet eyes. “Those are dangerous questions you’re asking,” he said. He withdrew his touch and stood up, making zir shiver under his cold glare. “Before you ask them, think about what you’re willing to sacrifice for the answer.” He vanished, and ze felt the absence of his energy like it had been carved out of zir chest.

Ze didn’t know how to silence the questions whirling through zir mind, or the sobs that clawed their way out of zir throat. Gabriel had made zir feel special, so how could he abandon zir so easily? If Gabriel loved zir, why did he treat zir like ze was worthless? If the Great Plan meant what was best for everyone, why would it make zir a powerless, nameless nobody?

_Why didn’t you name me, Mother?_

Eventually, ze met someone who said that it was okay to ask those questions. Someone who promised zir a future of equality, where ze could love freely and never be bound to an unjust hierarchy again. Someone who offered zir power in exchange for zir allegiance. And ze followed him into battle, and followed him when he was cast out of Heaven, and followed him down, down, down into Hell. 

Ze fell headfirst, not even looking at the pool of sulfur below, completely resigned to zir fate. It was a fate ze had chosen, even if ze had done so without knowing the consequences. 

The wind rushing by zir face made a buzzing sound, a sound that coalesced into words, whispering in zir ear, a message meant for zir alone.

A name.

Beelzebub. 

~

One year had passed since the attempted apocalypse, and since Gabriel and Beelzebub’s reconciliation. It wasn’t long in the span of their eternal lifetimes, barely the blink of an eye. But they spent all of it meeting in the same restaurants and the same hotel rooms, in that neutral ground on Earth, and by human standards, their relationship was long enough to be considered serious. It was a long time to spend with someone who didn’t know zir at all. 

Beelzebub resented who ze had been as an angel. Ze had fallen in love with Gabriel, let him name zir, define zir, and then let him treat zir like dirt until ze couldn’t take it anymore and joined the rebellion. After that, Beelzebub had defined zirself in opposition to Gabriel, and to Heaven as a whole, but at least that felt like an identity ze chose, rather than one imposed upon the blank slate of zir nameless self. Only now, being with him again reminded zir of who ze used to be, and ze couldn’t ignore the feeling that Gabriel wanted to mold zir back into the angel he remembered, a pretty face and nothing more. 

It would certainly make things easier on him if Beelzebub was an angel. He was even more furtive than he had been in their past relationship, because if he got caught with a demon, that would be even more devastating for his career as an archangel than it would be if ze were merely a low-ranking angel. He might even _fall_ for it, and he made sure to remind zir of the risk he was taking every time they met up. 

At least it didn’t wound Beelzebub’s pride anymore. Their similar positions did help equalize them in this particular circumstance; Beelzebub didn’t want the other Princes of Hell to find out ze was dating an angel, any more than Gabriel wanted the other Archangels to find out about his rendezvous with a demon. They kept their secrecy out of mutually assured destruction. 

But Gabriel was in love with the memory, not who ze was now, and that illusion was bound to shatter someday, along with the tenuous peace they had created. If Gabriel hadn’t been willing to risk it all for a nameless angel, how could ze expect him to do the same for a demon lord?

Beelzebub leaned over zir dressing table, examining zir face in the mirror, picking at a pustule that had appeared next to the corner of zir mouth. Ze had a tendency to pick at zir face when ze was deep in thought, but ze was trying to break the habit, so ze withdrew zir pinky finger from zir face, and sat on zir hands.

In zir peripheral vision, ze caught sight of the reflection of the bedroom door opening, and realized with a start that ze had forgotten to lock it. Ze stumbled out of their chair, less than gracefully, and turned to threaten whoever had dared to intrude on zir private time with one leg still balanced on the seat of the chair. 

Standing before zir was the last person that ze expected to see: the Archangel Gabriel himself.

“Gabriel? What are you doing here?” ze said, climbing off the chair. “You can’t be here. Someone could see you.”

“I’m just downstairs for business, or at least that’s what I told head office,” Gabriel said, closing the door behind him. When he turned to face zir, he reacted as if he was just as shocked to see Beelzebub as ze was to see him, as if he hadn’t just stepped into zir quarters in Hell. Disgust rolled over his features like a viscous tar, tugging down the corners of his mouth and eyes, wrinkling the bridge of his nose.

Beelzebub raised one eyebrow. “What?” ze said pointedly, crossing zir arms.

“Nothing!” Gabriel said. He quickly schooled his expression, realizing that it wasn’t polite to look so openly nauseated at the sight of his significant other. In an instant, the sickeningly fake smile he always wore in tense situations was back on his face. 

Beelzebub wasn’t going to let him off the hook that easily. “Why are you looking at me like that?” ze pressed.

“Like what?” said Gabriel. Playing dumb was his default defense mechanism, except most of the time, he didn’t have to play.

“Like I’m a pile of dog shit that you just got on your brand new shoe,” Beelzebub accused.

“Hey, now, that’s not fair,” Gabriel said, his eyes already flitting to anything in the room besides Beelzebub. “You just look… different, is all.”

“I know you’ve never seen me without my makeup before,” Beelzebub said. “But surely you must have seen a demon’s true face before at some point. You don’t need to look so shocked.”

“That was makeup? This…” he waved a hand in Beelzebub’s direction, “isn’t makeup? This is how you naturally look?”

“Of course it is,” Beelzebub groaned in exasperation. He could be so slow. “You think I can go to Earth looking like this? Every time you’ve seen me on Earth, you’ve seen me in makeup.”

Gabriel nodded and gulped, his hands clasped behind his back, his gaze firmly on the tips of his shoes. 

“But it’s for your benefit, too, isn’t it?” Beelzebub said, crossing the room to the doorway where Gabriel still stood. Ze took his chin between zir thumb and forefinger and tilted his face up so that he had no choice but to look straight at zir. “You can’t even bear to look at me like this. You think I’m ugly.”

“No, no, no, I don’t think that,” Gabriel insisted, desperate to reassure zir, and at the same time defend himself. He swept zir up into his arms and spun zir around, so that he landed on the chair in front of the dressing table, with Beelzebub situated on top of his lap. With his arms still wrapped tightly around zir, he nuzzled his face into the crook of zir neck, then kissed his way up zir face, lips brushing against the boils on zir chin, cheeks, nose, and forehead.

“What are you doing?” Beelzebub asked.

“Kissing you,” he said, his eyes closed. “My beautiful Beelzebub.”

This was not an improvement. Ze would have preferred that he continue in the vein of his initial reaction and throw up on the floor. “What did you call me?” Beelzebub said.

“Beautiful,” Gabriel said again, and the word made Beelzebub want to cringe so hard that zir entire face would fold in on itself. “It doesn’t matter what you look like on the outside. True beauty is within.”

If he kept spouting platitudes that sounded like he read them in a human self-help book, _Beelzebub_ was the one who might throw up on the floor. Ze slapped a hand over his mouth, prying him off of zir before he could lay another kiss on zir face. “Where do you get off, acting like this?” ze said.

“Well, you sounded insecure about thinking that I thought you were ugly. _Which I don’t_ ,” he emphasized. “So I wanted to prove to you that I don’t think that.”

“I’m not insecure,” Beelzebub said. Ze hopped out of Gabriel’s lap, and leaned against the edge of the table across from the chair instead. “I know for a fact that I’m ugly. I don’t need your empty reassurances.”

“But you also got mad at me for looking grossed out,” Gabriel pointed out. “So which is it?”

“You’re allowed to think I’m ugly. That’s a perfectly reasonable reaction,” Beelzebub sighed, with all the worn-thin patience of those poor souls in accounting explaining to rookie demons how to fill out their temptation reports. “I just don’t want you to look so surprised about it. Demons in Hell are ugly. You should know that, and you should be expecting it when you walk into my private quarters unannounced, when I haven’t had a chance to put on my makeup.”

Gabriel fidgeted uncomfortably in Beelzebub’s chair. It was too small for him, and his knees were practically up to his chest even with his feet flat on the ground. “I’m sorry,” he said.

That never got any less enjoyable than the first time he said it. “Now we’re getting somewhere,” ze said.

“Do you want me to leave?” Gabriel asked, his vulnerability plain to see on his face, pleading for the answer to be _no_ with every fiber of his being.

“No, not if you’re going to look so pathetic about it,” Beelzebub said. “Just warn me next time, okay? So that I have time to get ready.”

“You don’t have to go through all that trouble for me,” Gabriel said. “I’ll still think you’re beautiful, no matter what.”

“You still don’t get it, do you?” Beelzebub said. Ze leaned over him, placing both hands on the back of the chair behind him, inching close to his face. “When I was an angel, I didn’t want to be beautiful. I didn’t want to be meek, or obedient, or any of the things that were expected of me. Being a demon freed me to be who I am. I still have to put on a face to interact with humans, but this, what you’re seeing right now, is the real me.” 

Ze pushed back from the chair and perched against the table again, pointing to zir face. “I didn’t want you to see the real me. I thought you would pity me, or try to heal me, or just walk right out the door when you saw how hideous I was. But I didn’t expect you to call me beautiful. That’s the worst of all.”

“What’s wrong with that?” Gabriel asked. 

“I don’t give a shit what you think of how I look. I don’t dress or do my makeup for you,” Beelzebub said, drawing zirself up to zir full height in front of him. “But when you make it about something other than looks, and call me beautiful with your mouth while you cringe away from me with your eyes, it feels like you’re forcing me back into that box. You’re not really calling me beautiful, but the idea of me, the memory of me as an angel that doesn’t exist anymore. I’m not beautiful, and I don’t want to be. Beauty isn’t the price I pay for existing.”

Gabriel’s sharply raised eyebrows made Beelzebub think that ze had stunned him into silence for once. Then, he insulted zir with a sarcastic slow clap. “Wow, what a pithy slogan. I still have no idea what the fuck you’re talking about,” he retorted.

“That’s because you’re refusing to listen to me,” Beelzebub said, fuming. 

“I am listening to you, but you’re not making any sense,” Gabriel said. “But, fine, if you get offended when I call you beautiful, then I won’t say it anymore.”

“Fine. Good enough,” Beelzebub conceded.

“You can’t stop me from thinking it, though,” he said with a sly grin.

“Shut up,” Beelzebub snapped.

“Have you had enough arguing for your foreplay, or…?” Gabriel teased.

Beelzebub groaned. Of course, it wasn’t like he had any other reason to be here. “I hate you.” 

His unwavering grin told zir that he read something different into those words, and Beelzebub couldn’t say that he was entirely wrong. 

With a reluctant sigh, Beelzebub climbed back onto his lap, pinning him against the chair, and pressed a kiss to his lips. It only lasted until the chair started to rock backward from their combined weight, and they broke apart, startled.

Gabriel narrowly caught the chair by sticking his foot out to hook around the leg of the table, and swung it back upright. “I don’t think this is the most convenient position for this. Don’t you have a bed or something?”

Beelzebub got up and jerked zir thumb towards the bed, which was little more than a plank of wood suspended from the wall by diagonal chains.

“This is what you call a bed?” Gabriel said, walking over to inspect it.

“Actually, it’s the most luxury model in Hell,” Beelzebub replied.

“What’s luxury about it?” Gabriel asked.

“Doesn’t have spikes.”

“Oh,” Gabriel muttered, nodding slowly, trying to process this information.

“Doesn’t compare to what you have in Heaven, does it?” Beelzebub said. 

“I don’t even have a bed. Or a bedroom. Just an office,” Gabriel said. “The office chair is comfortable, but napping in it for too long is hard on the back. Not that I’ve ever fallen asleep on the job, obviously.”

“Obviously,” Beelzebub repeated snidely. “Can we get on with it, or is the bed not living up to your standards?”

“Right, of course,” Gabriel said, and that was all the cue Beelzebub needed to grab his shoulders and shove him down onto the unforgiving bed. Gabriel undressed. Beelzebub didn’t, any more than unzipping zir fly to reveal the necessary parts. Zir entire body was covered in boils like the ones on zir face, and ze couldn’t imagine that letting Gabriel see those would go well for either of them. 

Beelzebub kept zir eyes open while they kissed. Gabriel didn’t. Once his eyes slipped closed, he didn’t open them again, not even when they were finished and Beelzebub cleaned him up, and immediately after that, he dozed off.

The Archangel Gabriel, dressed in only his underwear, was asleep in the Prince of Hell’s bed. The bed was too short for him, his lower legs hanging off the edge of the plank. He didn’t even complain about it being uncomfortable, so ze must have done an impeccable job of wearing him out. 

Curled up by his side, ze traced a finger over his perfect face, his flawless skin. He looked so trusting in his sleep, and Beelzebub had never taken him for the type who would let his guard down around a demon. Beelzebub had seen him asleep before, in hotel beds on Earth, but here, in zir own territory, it felt even more vulnerable somehow. Which only made what ze was about to do feel more like a transgression. Guilt twisted in zir stomach, but ze pushed it down. It wasn’t proper for a demon to feel guilt, and in any case, ze had to do this. It was the only way to make him understand. 

~

Gabriel opened his eyes in that sticky haze that followed from accidentally falling asleep and waking up less well rested than before. He took in the dim surroundings, looked up at the stained cement ceiling, and remembered that he was in Beelzebub’s room. The petite demon prince was nowhere to be found. He cringed at the stiffness in his arms and back. The bed was suitable for other activities, but it was not an ideal place to sleep. He made a note to himself to get them an extra comfortable hotel room for next time. 

His face itched, the skin pinched in some places and stretched in others. He reached up and ran a hand over his face, and found the texture to be uneven. He forced himself up from the bed, still wincing as his joints regained sensation after being pressed against the hard wooden board, and shuffled over to Beelzebub’s dressing table. 

What he saw in the mirror almost knocked him flat on his back. His face was a blotchy, bruised, purple mess. He leaned in closer to the mirror, peering through the dust and grime that accumulated on every surface in Hell. His eyes were sunken in livid pits, smaller fingertip-sized bruises littered his cheeks, and raised veins splintered out from the bruises, trailing across his face in wiggly lines and branching patterns. When he pressed his finger against his cheekbone, it didn’t sting, as it would if it were a black eye. These weren’t injuries from a fight. They were scars, marks of a fallen angel. 

“No, no, no,” Gabriel murmured. He rubbed his palm over the mirror, wiping away the dust, thinking that maybe it was just an illusion created by a mirror in Hell, but the shinier surface only reflected back his face in even more grotesque detail. 

He stumbled across the room to another corner, where there was an even more tarnished mirror above a ceramic sink. He turned the handle of the faucet with some effort, and a black sludge dribbled out. He waited for it to clear, and soon water began to flow, although the liquid was a murky brown color. It would have to do. He squeezed his eyes shut, leaned over the sink, and splashed the water onto his face with cupped hands, scrubbing it deep into the creases around the swollen bruises and veins. Once he felt like he had practically scraped his face raw, he rinsed off again and looked up in the mirror. His soaked face remained unchanged. 

“No. This can’t be happening,” Gabriel screamed, his voice ragged as it wrenched out of his throat. He crumpled to his knees on the floor, his hands splayed over his broken face, as tears pooled in the spaces between his fingers.

The door creaked open, and a familiar pair of shoes stepped inside. “Beelzebub!” he cried. He got to his feet and grabbed zir by the lapels. “Beelzebub, help me!”

“What’s wrong?” Beelzebub asked, zir face dispassionate.

“Can’t you see? I’m…” The last word came out as barely a whisper. “Fallen.”

“What’s so bad about that? So am I,” said Beelzebub, still infuriatingly calm given the situation.

“I know, but you’re… You’re a demon!” he said.

“So? We’re the same now,” Beelzebub said, zir voice flat and neutral and utterly unsympathetic to Gabriel’s plight.

“No. Stop. This can’t be real,” he sobbed. “Please, help me…” Beelzebub shushed him with a kiss, more gentle than he expected from zir, so much so that he chased after it when ze pulled their lips apart.

“Sit down,” Beelzebub instructed him, leading him by the shoulder to the chair in front of the dressing table. Ze stroked his hair, the gesture providing him little comfort. “I think you look pretty in all this purple. It’s your color.”

“Pretty?” Gabriel sputtered. The face he saw in the mirror was the most vile thing that had ever assaulted his eyes, and there was nothing _pretty_ about it. Now was not the time for compliments, but since when did Beelzebub ever compliment him?

Gabriel watched in the mirror as Beelzebub lifted zir hand up to zir lips, and licked zir thumb. “But, if you insist…” Ze brought zir thumb to Gabriel’s face, and drew it in a stripe down his cheek. It cut a clean path through the bruises and the veins, revealing unmarred skin underneath. 

“You… How?” Gabriel asked in amazement.

“It’s makeup, dumbass,” Beelzebub said.

“But I tried to wash it off in the sink, and it didn’t work,” Gabriel said.

“I used a little demonic miracle to make my makeup waterproof. It wouldn’t do if it washed away in the rain while I was on the surface, would it?” Beelzebub said. “That also means that I’m the only one who can remove it.”

The relief at finding out that it wasn’t real, that he wasn’t really fallen, was tempered by the fear that gripped his heart every time he looked in the mirror at his ravaged face. He raised his hand to snap his fingers, to try to miracle it off, but Beelzebub grabbed his wrist. “Can you take the rest of it off, please?” he begged. 

“Wait. I want you to sit in this feeling first,” Beelzebub said. Ze leaned over the back of the chair, fingers tracing over his shoulders and collarbones, using every inch of zir modest height to loom over him. “Does it feel uncomfortable? Does it feel wrong? Does it make you want to crawl out of your skin?”

“Yes,” Gabriel said with a shudder. He tried to tilt his head away from the mirror, but Beelzebub’s fingers pressed against his temples, and turned his face so that he was forced to look at his reflection. 

“Good,” said Beelzebub, resting zir chin on his shoulder, placing zir lips against his ear. “I want you to remember how this feels, because that’s how I feel every moment that I have to wear makeup, and hide my true face, and look _beautiful_ for humans and shallow angels like you.”

Gabriel tried to stare at his corrupted visage without screwing his eyes shut in terror. A tear ran down his face, following the line carved through the markings. 

“Do you have that feeling burned into your memory?” Beelzebub asked. 

Gabriel’s head jerked up and down in short, frantic nods.

“Okay. Close your eyes.” Beelzebub picked up a washcloth and a bottle from the dressing table, and squirted makeup remover onto the cloth. Gabriel closed his eyes, and felt the soothing touch of the damp washcloth scrubbing away Beelzebub’s twisted artwork from his face. When he opened his eyes, the face staring back at him in the mirror was his own again, and he heaved a sigh of relief. 

Once his body had uncoiled from the tension of fear, the next emotion that seized him was anger. “Why did you do that to me?” he asked, his voice low and tentative. 

“Calm down. I didn’t actually hurt you,” Beelzebub said, leaning away from him but remaining near, as if ze was unsure whether he would push zir away. He never would, not after being deprived of zir for so long, but he wanted to find out why ze hurt him whenever he let zir close.

“You scared the shit out of me,” Gabriel said. “Why would you do that?”

“Because I had to make you understand,” Beelzebub said.

“I do understand,” Gabriel insisted. 

“Of course you don’t understand,” Beelzebub said, walking around behind the chair. “You’re an angel. Angels are supposed to be beautiful. You’ve never known what it’s like to have to hide your true face. You walk around on Earth looking the same way you do now, complete with your freakishly purple eyes.” 

“My eyes aren’t freakish,” Gabriel said weakly. “They’re ethereal.”

“Right. I’m sure all the humans are captivated by them,” Beelzebub said. “Meanwhile, I’m told that my true face is wrong, and broken, and I should want to erase it. I can’t explain to you how that feels. So I had to show you.”

“But I didn’t want to look like that,” Gabriel said, turning the chair around to face zir. “You put makeup on me against my will. But you put your own makeup on yourself, so there must be something about it that you like. You have such a talent for makeup, so why would you choose to look… like _this_?”

Beelzebub dragged a hand over zir face. “Do you believe in the Great Plan, Gabriel?” ze asked, circling closer again, placing zir hand on the back of his neck, pulling him in so that their foreheads touched. “I would, but faith isn’t in a demon’s job description.”

“I—I think they’re calling it the Ineffable Plan these days,” Gabriel stammered. “We got a memo.”

“Whatever,” Beelzebub scoffed. “If there’s a plan, great or ineffable or whatever you want to call it, then that means that things could only have gone exactly as they did. I was always meant to be this. And I don’t want to be someone I’m not, for you, or for anyone else.” 

Beelzebub backed away from him again, as that was always what ze did, the endless dance, the push and pull, offering contact before withdrawing it again. Gabriel was tired of it. He just wanted to keep zir close without having to play these games.

“That sounds rather deterministic, for you,” Gabriel commented, standing up from the chair and taking a step towards zir. “For all that you go on about defying your destiny, you sound pretty complacent about accepting the one you were given.”

Beelzebub’s body tensed, shoulders locking into rigid right angles, and ze took a hesitant step back. It was so rare that one of his barbs landed that he found himself savoring the deer-in-the-headlights look on zir face. Beelzebub seemed to derive great pleasure from verbally eviscerating Gabriel, and he didn’t want to stoop to zir level, but it did feel good to turn the tables sometimes.

“I know what this is about,” Gabriel said, not moving closer, but standing his ground, holding onto his lead while he had it. “You’re afraid of losing me.”

“That is _not_ true,” Beelzebub huffed, but the way the heat rose in zir usually level voice signaled to him that he had zir cornered.

“Yes, it is,” Gabriel said. “You’re afraid that once I see the part of you that you’re trying to hide, I’ll leave. That’s why you keep pushing me away, because you want to convince yourself that it was your choice, just like how you justified your fall. But sometimes, the bravest thing you can do is to accept that someone could leave you, and love them anyway.” He stared unflinchingly at Beelzebub, whose glacier-blue eyes glistened as if the wall of ice ze had built up around zir heart was finally melting. “I should know. I never stopped loving you for six thousand years.”

Beelzebub’s hands had curled into trembling fists at zir sides. “I… I have to go.” Ze turned zir face away from Gabriel, seemed to realize that ze was still in zir own room, and added, “To work.” Ze opened the door, but Gabriel angled himself so that he blocked zir path, leaning against the doorframe.

“Wait,” Gabriel said. “If you run away now, you’ll only prove me right.”

“Fuck,” Beelzebub muttered under zir breath, closing the door.

Before Beelzebub could retreat again, he enfolded zir into his arms. “I know that we can’t go back to the way things were. But that doesn’t mean that we can’t make the best of what we have now, love.”

Dropping that pet name made Beelzebub go still in his arms. He knew he was crossing a line by dredging it up again, but he hoped that he hadn’t made zir close off completely. 

“You know that a fall is irreversible, right?” ze said against his chest. “You were distraught when you thought you had fallen, but that is a real risk of being with a demon. Would you stay with me, even if you knew you would fall for it?”

This time, it was Gabriel who put some distance between them, pulling away from Beelzebub and holding zir at arm’s length, still keeping his hands on zir shoulders. “That’s an unfair ultimatum to put on me.”

“I never play fair,” Beelzebub said. 

“I’ve noticed,” Gabriel sighed. Now that he had Beelzebub back, after so long, he wanted to promise anything to stay with zir, but he couldn’t. He’d had a taste of falling, at Beelzebub’s hands, and if that nightmare came true, he didn’t think he would survive. “I’m not ready to risk that. I can’t sacrifice the one thing that makes me who I am.”

“Neither can I,” said Beelzebub. “I can’t be the angel you remember. This is who I am now. Can you accept me for who I am, ugliness and all?”

“You’re not…” he began, but bit his tongue. “I mean, I think so. But I need to know I can get the same respect from you in return.”

Beelzebub slid back into his embrace, hiding zir face against his chest. “I’m sorry, Gabriel…” ze whispered. He thought that he felt the dampness of tears trickling down zir face and touching his skin. “I’m sorry… I had to make you understand…”

“You did,” Gabriel said, running a hand over zir tangled black hair. “But I still can’t say I would… _fall_ for you.” It hurt to think that he might someday have to choose between losing Beelzebub and falling. It hurt even more to know that Beelzebub had already made that choice once, and what choice ze had made.

“I’m not asking you to,” said Beelzebub. “We both sacrificed so much for what we believe in. If you compromised your beliefs for me, even if I don’t agree with them, I don’t know if I could look at you the same.”

“So why did you ask me, then?” Gabriel probed. “Was it a test?”

“No. I just want to make sure you know what we’re both getting into here,” said Beelzebub. “There is no way this ends that we don’t destroy each other.”

Gabriel released Beelzebub from his arms, and then leaned down, bent at the waist, to cradle Beelzebub’s face in his hands. “I know. But it’s worth it,” he said, pressing a kiss to zir lips, and then one a little off-center, to the beautiful ugly mark on the corner of zir mouth.


End file.
